Avatar photo

Rob Fenn

Head of Human Rights and Democracy Department, FCO

Part of FCDO Outreach

10th May 2013 London, UK

Sajak CSCLeaders / CSCLeaders Poems

In this guest blog, Hajah Aidah shares with us three poems that she wrote for the CSCLeaders conference , where she represented the Sultanate. CSCLeaders is a series of Conferences for exceptional leaders, which assembles individuals from across the Commonwealth to tackle challenges that government, businesses and society face today and builds the relationships needed by the leaders of tomorrow.

RINDU DI GLASGOW

Glasgow, aku datang
Membawa sebuah hati gersang
Kerana rindu tak pernah padam
Suasanamu agak kelam
Menambah jiwa yang suram
Bersama kedinginan malam

Matahari menjelma
Lalu Glasgow pun bercahaya
Hati ini turut ceria
Walau rindu bertapak di sudut sana

Glasgow, aku jatuh cinta
Pada keindahan di pandang pertama
Walau kesibukan terlalu nyata
Sempat jua mengelilingi kota
Penduduk ramah mesra
Walau bicaramu sangat berbeza

Di Glasgow hati merindu
Turun lagi bersama hujan salju
Mereda api menyala
Tinggal saja menjadi bara

Selamat tinggal Glasgow
Perjuangan terus menggoda
Oxford, tunggu sebentar
Ku singgah terus ke bandar
Tenagaku semakin pudar
Kerja ini amat mencabar
Lalu esok berjumpa di Mumbai
Rakan Commonwealth melambai
Semangatku terus sampai
Ingatan Glasgow, Oxford, Mumbai
Tidakku lupa walau tenagaku berkecai….

Nukilan: Aidah
Glasgow
21hb Mac 2013

GOODBYE GLASGOW

Goodbye Glasgow
The challenge has not ended
Your leadership opened our eyes
Your diversity, passion, inequity
Your innovativeness
Stay in our heart
See you in Commonwealth Games
Next year in Glasgow, Scotland
Because I want to meet my friends
And have fun together again….

Composed by: Aidah Hanifah
21st March 2013

BRAVO CSCLEADERS

Oxford University
Your fame touches my dignity
Coming here ended my curiosity
We are here in harmony
Even if it is after a long journey

Centre of Excellence
So proud to be in co-existence
We are full of admiration
To be selected in this conference
With different background and experience To come here and face the challenge

Bravo CSCLeaders
Gathering of Commonwealth managers
We are the decision makers
We are the frontliners
Focusing on being bridge builders
Global networking brings us together
Adding values to each other
In diverse range of nationalities
Enhancing our commitment and responsibilities With the support of the Royalties

Commonwealth, we are here
Bravo CSCLeaders
Congratulations to all the organisers
Thank you to all the sponsors
Not forgetting the Common Purpose
For the hard work and success
I won’t say goodbye then
Because I know we will meet again
Mumbai or Johannesberg,
Here we come
Together as one….

Composed by: Aidah Hanifah
23rd March 2013

About Rob Fenn

Rob Fenn has been Head of the FCO’s Human Rights and Democracy Department since March 2014. His last formal responsibility for human rights was in the mid 1990s, when he…

Rob Fenn has been Head of the FCO’s Human Rights and Democracy Department
since March 2014. His last formal responsibility for human rights was in
the mid 1990s, when he served as UK Delegate on the Third Committee of
the General Assembly in New York (with annual excursions to what was
then the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva). Recent celebrations of
the twentieth anniversary of the creation of the post of UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights – a resolution he helped pilot through the
GA – came a shock. The intervening 20 years have flown: in Rome
(EU/Economics), in London (Southern European Department), in Nicosia
(Deputy High Commissioner) and latterly in Bandar Seri Begawan.
Rob,
Julia and their two sons loved Brunei, where British High Commissioners
are made especially welcome. The family’s activities included regular
walks in the pristine rainforest, expeditions upriver to help conserve
the Sultanate’s stunning biodiversity, and home movie making (in Brunei
it is almost impossible to take a bad photograph).
After
all those saturated colours, Rob worried that the move back to Britain
might feel like a shift into black and white. But the reunion with
family, friends and colleagues, and the boys’ brave reintegration into a
North London school, have been ample compensation. Julia’s main regret
is that, now she walks on Hampstead Heath, she no longer has an excuse
to carry a machete (“parang”).
Rob’s
problem is summed up in two types of reaction from friends outside the
office. On hearing that he is “in charge of human rights and democracy
at the FCO”, some think it sounds like a vast job: what else is there?
Others think it sounds wishy-washy: not in the national interest. Rob’s
mission is to take the Foreign Secretary’s dictum that “our values are
our interests”, and help his colleagues translate it into action in a
world so varied it can contain both Brunei’s clouded leopard and the
civil war in Syria.

Follow Rob